Kiern Jewiss ends the weekend on a high as the Douglas Motorsport driver won the final race of the weekend in the sixth round of the 2019 BRDC British Formula 3 Championship at the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit to beat Fortec Motorsports’s Johnathan Hoggard by 0.292 s by the chequered flag.
As the race began, Hoggard made a bad start which saw him lose the lead to Jewiss on the run down into Paddock Hill bend as his championship rival Clement Novalak also lost a place to Ulysse De Pauw in the opening exchanges of the race. But as the top two in the championship lost ground, third in the title race Ayrton Simmons made a great start to move from eighth to sixth position as he vies to stay within title contention at the crunch point of the season.
Further behind, Benjamin Pedersen dropped to the rear of the field after he ran wide out of Sheen turn while battling with Lucas Petersson for ninth and tenth places respectively.
Despite Jewiss inheriting the lead, he was unable to completely dispell the threat from Hoggard as the Fortec Motorsports driver clearly had the pace over the Douglas Motorsport racer, but just couldn’t quite find a way through.
Down at the rear of the field, Pavan Ravishankar was still feeling the effects of his race two crash as the Singaporean racer was forced to the pits at the end of lap five with suspected suspension damage, which after a hurried repair job, saw him rejoin at the back of the field. Although, he was promoted a position a lap later as Manuel Maldonado was forced to pull off circuit on the exit of Surtees after his car was hit with a mechanical problem that cost him some important points while running in tenth place.
Up front, Hoggard’s attacks were becoming more calculated every lap, and he was trying every trick in the book to get passed. He almost got alongside on the exit of Hawthorns on lap twelve, but Jewiss made sure that there was no way he could get passed. And despite throwing the kitchen sink and more at his attempts to get passed, Hoggard had to settle for second place and his ninth podium of the year.
But Kiern Jewiss claimed a well-deserved victory for his first win in the BRDC British F3 Championship and was joined by Hoggard and De Pauw on the podium. Novalak finished fourth which means despite a reduced points lead, he is still 40 points ahead with two rounds left at Silverstone and Donington Park. So can anyone overturn the ever-consistent British-Swiss racer in the fight for the title?
